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Reading Room Articles Outsourcing Success Written for Sales and Marketing Magic This idea comes to us from Dirk Wakeham, the President of Leasingdesk.com who writes: "I ran across a program that another company in an unrelated industry is using to increase their overall customer satisfaction. It's currently being adapted to our organization. We rely heavily on vendors and subcontractors to conduct many of our day-to-day property maintenance functions. This means that our own employees are not producing a large portion of the service that is being provided to the resident. Our organization believes that I order to remain competitive; we need to provide our residents superior customer service. Since our vendors are constantly involved in our cycle of service, we constantly need our vendors thinking customer service. To this end, we have created a program entitled "Partners in Excellence". If the vendor has contact with our customers and is not responding to their issues appropriately, then we'll never achieve our customer service objectives. The program basically recognizes vendors that provide excellent customer service to our residents. We have developed some vendor guidelines, a vendor credo, and constantly reinforce to our vendors the importance of customer service." At the time Dirk shared the idea with us, the program was still being refined, but he was kind enough to share a few of the program elements that were being considered: Showcase Partners in Excellence award-winners in the company and community newsletters. Give an engraved plaque to the vendor to hang in their place of business. This will reinforce to their employees our emphasis on customer service, as well as provide additional external name recognition opportunities for our company. Provide non-monetary incentives to the vendor for being selected a Partner in Excellence. Provide them a dedicated accounting representative to respond to their insurance requirement and invoice issues. Provide them preferred status for upcoming company networking events. Share the Wealth Here are two fantastic employee incentive ideas from Melanie Young of Alexander Properties Group. Melanie's first idea is a bonus program that helps the entire on-site team remains aware of the effect each of their positions has on the success of the community, and involves everyone in the resident retention and marketing process. Each time a new or renewal lease is signed, $5.00 is put into a pot to be divided among non-leasing team members (Maintenance, technical, porters, housekeeping, etc.). Melanie reports that her communities have experienced an increase in the quality of work performed by the whole team, and it has reinforced the importance of everyone's position. Melanie's second idea is to develop a Company Education Library. Education is key to each employee's success, as well as to the success of the company. With this in mind, Alexander Properties Group developed the "APG Library". It contains books, tapes, and videos on every subject from communication, to attitude, to performance. Employee receives continuing education points for each book, tape, or video they complete. The program is structured for all employees to receive a year-end bonus on the total number of credits they receive from the items they have checked out. This program works hand in hand with their seminar program, and has been a great success.